#square harmony

It's that time again, when crazily solid Russian underground dons Square Harmony drop the fire on us once more, this time from Stiver, who's based in The City of Seven Hills, Istanbul. However, this EP, 'Insignia' is heavily indebted to the underground of the UK, and it's seemingly influenced just as much by the insistent basslines of Pinch and Mala as the disintegrating drums of Burial.

This one is a three-track release, including two collaborations with Gantz. The original piece from Stiver, 'Whatever' is a bleak, deconstructed piece of darkness on the more garage-y (read: interesting) side of dubstep, the menace only broken by an occasional lassez-faire vocal sample, while the first of the two tracks featuring Gantz, 'Rough Vision' is a bouncy, subtle slab of straight up UK Garage. The title of the third track alone sums it up, 'Dead Dance' is exactly that, an eerie, tribal affair that brings the EP to an abrupt end, to the sound of a fading signal.

  Special shout to Olga from Square Harmony for her artwork, which does a lot to set a scene for the releases. Really atmospheric stuff, and good artwork is something that I think can go unnoticed in the digital age.

Grab it from May 30th on their Bandcamp page.

Square Harmony keep up their phenomenally fast and high quality output with their latest release from Rush'd.

Their takes on all forms of spectral music is laid aside for a slab of mid-to-late-90's UK Garage by the Russian producer, which kicks off with the silky smooth night jam, 'Easy', a slinky roller that might've flirted with the charts in 1999.

The real highlight however is the 'Ripgroove' indebted title track, 'For My Dogz'. Keeping up the 90's revival, this time taking inspiration from the aforementioned style of warping, Speed Garage-esque bass (which would've fitted perfectly with his better-known alter ego just as well) and breaky drums to create the one of the rawest tunes you'll hear all year. The vocal sample (which is a grower) is a clear nod to Rush'd's footwork stuff, and initially I was wary of it fitting into a tune with such a solid base in the UK, but it turned out to be a grower, and now I can't imagine the tune without it.

The EP comes to a close with a pleaser for the crowd that was expecting some juke-y flavours from Rush'd, in the form of a remix of the title track by Kiev-based Koloah, with his mutant take on footwork bringing the full life out of the vocal sample I previously mentioned.

You'll be able to grab it from Square Harmony's Bandcamp Page on April 23rd.

Square Harmony coming thick and fast, this one in particular coming straight outta nowhere, and even though this has come in the middle of a slew of beyond sick releases, this one is really standing out for me at the moment.

Bask in it.

Have you basked? Respect. This week I got the new Desolate release on Fauxpas Musik, and that made me pretty excited. Then I got this, and the Desolate release has kind of been put on the back burner. The atmosphere on these tracks shimmers whilst implying deep sorrow (especially "Lost In Time (The Calm Project Vocal Version)" but I've come to expect nothing less from Bimbotronic and Crispo, the guys behind LNF.

Honestly, I'm shocked at the quality that Square Harmony have come with in such a short time. Obviously they've got some pretty sweet connections with Night Tracks-friendly producers, but still. Shocking. 

Grab it from their Bandcamp page as a name-your-price download now. Or you could wait till the end of the year when you see it in the top releases of the year list on Night Tracks.

Regular readers will know that I'm quite the fan of Russian label Square Harmony and their next release won't break the trend of solid, dark releases. Next up on the schedule is Ghost Ark, with his 'Hidden Souls Of Another Genre EP'.

The first piece, 'Hidden Souls' is a further sign that Ghost Ark has been taking more straight-up dubstep influences into his work recently, a bass-heavy atmospheric half-stepper that wouldn't have been out of place in 2006.

For me though, the second track, 'Street Corners' renders the first almost insignificant (No offence!), with dark, moody strings and distant ghost-like vocals snatching in and out over persistant 2-stepping drum patterns, that matches the title perfectly. Kind of reminds me of a hyper-atmospheric Pangaea track.

Just a quick reminder that you can grab Square Harmony's Deep Lane compilation today as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp. Grab it here.

a href="http://squareharmony.bandcamp.com/album/sh-03-va-deep-lane"SH 03 - VA: Deep Lane by Square Harmony

Oh, and also, you can pick up the Ak0pian release I reviewed here today from digital stores and Broken Bubble's bandcamp page.